Marketing wants to promote the Saturday night lantern walk in an email. Education wants to send a school the link for one specific field trip date. A partner website wants a “Buy tickets” button next to each concert in a series. In every case the ask is the same: give me the web address that opens this event, not the general ticketing page where people have to hunt for it.
Altru doesn’t make that easy to answer in one place. Below is how to work out what your setup can actually do, how to build a usable list of event links for a program, and what to do when per-event links aren’t available.
Start by testing what your online sales pages will accept
How you get to a specific event online depends on how your organization sells it. Scheduled program events usually sell through a ticketing web form that shows a date picker or event list, while one-off events may have their own registration form. Those behave differently, so test each type you use instead of assuming.
- Open your public ticketing page in a browser and click through to one event in the program, as a guest would.
- Watch the address bar at each step. Note whether the URL changes when you pick a date or event, and whether it contains anything that looks like an identifier.
- Copy that URL, open a private browser window, and paste it in. If it lands on the same event with the right date selected, you have a usable deep link. If it drops you back at the start of the form, it doesn’t.
- Repeat with a second event in the same program. If only one part of the URL changes between them, you’ve found the piece you’ll swap out for each event.
Be careful here. A URL that happens to work today isn’t the same as a supported feature, and it may change if Blackbaud updates the online sales pages. Before you print a link on a poster or hand it to a partner, ask Blackbaud support whether direct links to individual events are supported for your form type. If you have a sandbox, test there first.
Build the event list with a query
Whether or not deep links work, you need an inventory of the events themselves. A program event query is the right tool. Include the fields that someone outside the box office would need:
- Program name
- Event name or description
- Start date and start time
- Capacity, if marketing wants to know what’s close to selling out
- Any system identifier the query offers, which you may need if your test above showed an ID in the URL
Filter on the program (or programs) you care about and on start dates from today forward, so past events don’t clutter the list. Export to a spreadsheet, then add a column for the link. If your testing found a predictable URL pattern, a simple formula can build each link from the identifier column. If not, that column holds whatever the best landing page is for that event, which may be the same general page for all of them.
Save the query. Programs get new events added all season, and rerunning a saved query is much faster than rebuilding the list from memory.
When there’s no link to a single event
Plenty of organizations find that their program’s online form only works as one page for every date. That’s workable if you plan for it.
Link to the program, and say which date to pick
In email and social posts, link to the program’s ticketing page and name the date and time right next to the button. It’s one extra click for the buyer, and it doesn’t break if the form changes.
Use a dedicated form for events that need their own link
For a gala, a members-only preview, or a school program with a single date, a separate form or program built just for that event gives it an address of its own. The tradeoff is more setup and more forms to retire when the event is over, so save this for events where a direct link really matters.
Put the event pages on your own website
Instead of pointing people straight at the ticketing form, give each event a page on your site with the description, date, and a buy button. Your site then provides the stable, shareable URL, and the button can point at whichever Altru page works best. This also gives you better pages for search engines than a bare ticketing form.
Keep the list from going stale
Event lists get outdated fast. Agree on who reruns the query and how often, perhaps weekly during a busy season. Check links again after any change to your online sales setup, and after Blackbaud updates if you’re relying on a URL pattern you worked out yourself. A broken link in a partner’s newsletter is hard to recall once it’s sent.
A calendar as an alternative to a link list
Sometimes the real goal behind “a link for every event” is letting visitors see what’s coming and pick a date without wading through a form. Our Calendar Builder adds an embeddable timed-ticketing calendar to your website, with availability pulled from Altru in real time. It doesn’t replace the query above for internal lists, but it can mean fewer one-off links to manage on your public site.
Quick answers
Can Altru export event URLs directly?
We’re not aware of a standard query field that outputs a ready-made public link for each program event. Check the fields in your program event query, and confirm with Blackbaud support if you need one.
Will a link copied from my browser keep working?
Possibly, but don’t count on it unless Blackbaud confirms it’s supported. Test it in a private window and recheck after any online sales or platform changes.
